First Glasgow and then the World

[leckuno]

Queen's Park FC were founded in 1867, giving them the title of the oldest football club outside of England and the only Scottish club to play in the FA Cup final in 1884 and 1885 (Thanks Wikipedia)

Having remarkably played in the Scotland's Professional football leagues while retaining their amateur status for many years, in November 2019 the club's members voted to move on from this lifelong amateur status following the departures of several key players (like Scotland internationals Andy Robertson and Lawrence Shankland) without any compensation. However, they didn't just become semi-professional, they are the only fully professional team among semi-professional teams in their league. This coincides with the sale of Hampden Park to the Scottish FA for £5m, agreed back in September 2018, so it is a period of significant change for the club nicknamed 'The Spiders'.

With the club going professional then it as an exciting opportunity to climb the leagues and possibly challenge the existing footballing duopoly in the city of Glasgow, and challenging at the top with this famous old club. The club is 3rd in the list of all time Scottish Cup winners with only Rangers and Celtic ahead of them so it would be huge to win it again as the last win came in 1893.

While the club's training ground which sits immediately to the west of Hampden Park, Lesser Hampden, is being converted to a fully certified stadium with a seating capacity of 1,774, the club will remain at Hampden for the first season.

The Vision

As you can see the club has some lofty ambitions now that they are professional with them looking to win League 2 this season before getting promoted to the Championship 2 seasons later. We also need to get to the third round of the Scottish Cup as well so hopefully we can get a big team reaching the 3rd round. I agree with the club culture and I will be looking to use the youth system and improve it at every opportunity as a key part for me will be producing talents for the national team.

Another goal for me in this save will be to become the biggest team in Glasgow which hopefully means that we will be the biggest team in Scotland. With this the first hurdle will be to leapfrog Partick Thistle who are in League 1 before looking at the Old Firm.
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[leckuno]

The Squad

So looking at the squad it isn't half bad as we have some players who have Premier League experience such as Darren Lyon, Craig Slater and Bob McHugh. After that there are a few positions that could do with new players in like a new goal keeper and Willie Muir doesn't look quite up to it. A new left winger and a new striker are needed as well and maybe even a center back if we can find somebody else for a bit more depth.

Transfers

This then brings us in nicely to the transfers. With a new Goal keeper needed we looked to Hamilton and signed young keeper Kyle Gourlay from Hamilton for £30,000 meaning he becomes the most expensive signing in the clubs history. He has room to improve and that will be important.

Next for the left wing we looked to our neighbours and signed Blair Lyons from Partick Thistle for £20,000 and he should do for a season or two.

Next we brought in Advanced Forward Lee Angol from Leyton Orient for £10,500. With experience in the lower leagues of England then he can hopefully help fire us towards the league title.

Finally we signed a new center back as well in the form of Darren Brownlie from Partick Thistle for £11,500 and he will battle it out for a starting position.

Preseason

Well we got some good results in with only losing to teams in the leagues above us but those loses along with the narrow win over our reserves did make me change us the tactic a bit as it just didn't look good enough for us but in the end we should now be ready for the season ahead of us.

The Tactic

So this time I have decided to create my own tactic and this season we will be going with an old school 4-4-2 with us looking to play a possession based game while attacking but defensively sound.

Betfred Cup

It could of certainly been a worse draw but we'll go into it with no expectations and hope we don't get hammered by anybody including the other 2 teams in League 2 from our group.

October

Its great to be finally getting underway with the club and we have good games to break us in in the league with the League Cup game against Alloa being the only game not against League 2 opposition this month​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Didn't know that Queen's Park are professional now! Should be an enjoyable save for you and will surely take a minimum of 6 seasons just to become competitive in the Premiership, nevermind competing with Rangers and Celtic!

 

[leckuno]

Didn't know that Queen's Park are professional now! Should be an enjoyable save for you and will surely take a minimum of 6 seasons just to become competitive in the Premiership, nevermind competing with Rangers and Celtic!

Fingers crossed we can get to the Premiership and stay up within 6 seasons. Should be fun trying to get above either of the old firm anyway

 

[leckuno]

October

League Cup Group F
Annan Athletic v Queen's Park

Well we certainly show we aren't here to be pushed around this season in the cup which is good.

League Cup Group F
Queen's Park v Alloa Athletic

We put in a solid performance against the Championship team and sneak the win on penalties here to give us a good chance of finishing 2nd in the group.

Stirling Albion v Queen's Park

What a start to our league campaign and this shows hopefully how easy it will be for us to be promoted this season. There were dream debuts for Angol and Lyons as well.

Queen's Park v Albion Rovers

Albion Rovers really made us work for it here but we showed that we keep fighting right until the end with 2 late goals.

Stranraer v Queen's Park

So maybe the Stirling result was a bit of a fluke as we only win by a single goal here but 3 points is 3 points and we don't care how close the games are as long as we win.

League

We open up a 2 point lead at the top of the table and hopefully that will only grow.

November

A repeat of last month with 2 cup games and then 3 in the league. Livingston is going to be tough but I'm hopeful for the rest of the games this month.​

 

[leckuno]

November

Elgin City v Queen's Park

Well Elgin gave us a good run for our money but luckily we can out score most of of the teams here.

League Cup Group F
Livingston v Queen's Park

We looked good for a result here for part of the game but Livingston were able to show why they are in the Premiership and we're not.

League Cup Group F
Queen's Park v Edinburgh City

Another 5 goals scored so its safe to say we aren't going to struggle with goals this season as our strikers just keep scoring. Sadly we have gone out of the cup as we weren't able to finish as one of the top 4 2nd place teams.

Queen's Park v Brechin City

Well for the first time in a while our strikers don't score but luckily we have 2 wingers that can score for us

Queen's Park v Stenhousemuir

Well this result has come out of the blue and we got hammered after taking the lead but we can't let it get to us and we need to come back stronger.

League

Even with the loss we still hold a 3 point lead after 6 games so with 21 games to go we're still in pole position

December

A nice quiet month since we're not in the League Cup anymore but we do have the 1st round of the Scottish Cup which we will be looking to go as far as we can in​

 

[leckuno]

December

Queen's Park v Edinburgh City

We love scoring goals against Edinburgh as we've put 9 goals past them now in just 2 games. Long may it continue.

Cowdenbeath v Queen's Park

The original game was postponed due to a water logged pitch and it took out toll on us as it came just 2 days after the Edinburgh game and we just weren't at our best here.

Annan Athletic v Queen's Park

We bounce back quickly and its good to see us knock 4 goals past Annan after drawing a blank

Scottish Cup 1st Round
Queen's Park v Fraserburgh

This was probably a tougher game than it had to be but we progress to the 2nd round and thats all that matters

League

Thanks to the loss we're now only top by goal difference so it seems that this isn't as easy as I thought it would be this season

January

A big month as we face Championship side Arbroath in the 2nd round of the Scottish cup but we also face 2nd place Stirling Albion in the league as well

Youth Preview

Well this looks promising. Hopefully we can get one player who can come through the ranks and look at making an impact over the next few seasons and whats important this time is we won't loss our best youths on a free transfer
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[leckuno]

January

Albion Rovers v Queen's Park

We continue to score goals which can only help us with promotion. The only blemish was the red card for Angol

Scottish Cup 2nd Round
Queen's Park v Arbroath

What a game against the Championship team and we had to fight back from behind twice and we get a nice late goal to see is through to the third round where we'll meet Dunfermline.

Queen's Park v Stranraer

meh this is a poor result and there is nothing else to say as it allows Stirling to leapfrog us in the table

Brechin City v Queen's Park

Again we bounce back straight away thanks to Simon Murray to keep hot on the heels of Stirling.

Queen's Park v Stirling Albion

What a win as this was a big game as it puts us back top of the table. It was a nervy final half hour as I knew Stirling had it in them to pull it back but its a big step for the club to get back to the top.

Scottish Cup 3rd Round
Queen's Park v Dunfermline Athletic

What a win for us as we make it into the 4th round to face Hearts. Simon Murray has been a key player for us as and has been rewarded with a new contract after this game

League

We're back to having a 2 point lead but I'm starting to think we're going to have to pull out something special to grow our lead at the top of the table.

February

It all goes out the door this month as we we will look to throw everything at Hearts to see if we can make it into the next round of the Scottish Cup.​

 

[leckuno]

February

Queen's Park v Cowdenbeath

What an opening 8 minutes to the game as we have 4 different goal scorers. Its just a shame that we weren't able to get any more goals ourselves as it was a chance to get a lot of goals.

Stenhousemuir v Queen's Park

Well this was disappointing after the last game. We had to fight back from behind twice and we left it late to make sure we got a point.

Queen's Park v Annan Athletic

A better game as we needed to make sure we didn't drop any more points to make sure we don't let Stirling get a grip on the league..

Scottish Cup 4th Round
Hearts v Queen's Park

What a game. Not going to lie going into the final 10 minutes I actually though that we were going to get a result against Hearts but they were able to take it up a gear and get 2 goals back before then beating us on penalties.

Edinburgh City v Queen's Park

We have always been able to score a lot of goals against Edinburgh City but this time defensively we were poor as at one point it looked like we were going to throw away a 5-0 lead as they got 3 goals within 5 minutes but thankfully we were able to hold on.

League

Thanks to our draw we're back level with Stirling but thankfully we have the better goals scored but its going to be an interesting end to the season between the two of us.

March

Well we come face to face with Stirling again and its going to be a must win match as it will allow us to lose against somebody else and have that 3 point buffer.​

 

[leckuno]

March

Queen's Park v Elgin City

A nice easy start to the month as Murray just keeps showing how important he is at the club. I wasn't sure on him at the start since he was out injured but he will be a key player next season as well.

Queen's Park v Brechin City

Murray and Slater with the goals again as we coast past Brechin to stay level on points with Stiring.

Stirling Albion v Queen's Park

This was the game that everybody has been talking about all month as the winner of this could go on and clinch the league. We has some injury news before hand as Bob Mchugh got injured in training by Angol came in and showed he can take his place as he gets the important 2nd goal for us.

Stranraer v Queen's Park

Angol really staking his claim to be a starting player as he bags an excellent hat-trick for us.

League

We are top of the league by 3 points now and we have also qualified for the playoffs at the worse but lets get this wrapped up now.

The Run In

There hopefully shouldn't be much to worry about here but we have lost away to Cowdenbeath already this season and are yet to beat Stenhousemuir yet so lets see what happens.​

 

[leckuno]

The End of the Season

Queen's Park v Albion Rovers

A tale of two halves here as we were pretty poor in the first and weren't able to create any changes but after a talking to at half time we pulled through.

Cowdenbeath v Queen's Park

It was a nervy final 15 minutes but we managed to hold on to get the 3 points but we were lucky to walk away with them

Queen's Park v Stenhousemuir

Its taken 3 attempts but we've finally beaten Stenhousemuir and it was a convincing victory as well.

Queen's Park v Edinburgh City

Well in comparison to previous meetings this was quite a boring game but 3 points is 3 points

Elgin City v Queen's Park

We've scored most of our goals in the opening 20 minutes of matches and long may it continue as its always harder to fight back than it is to hold onto a lead.

Annan Athletic v Queen's Park

What a game to finish the season. It had 2 goals in the opening 4 minutes and a goal in the final 5 minutes. But none the less it was a game fitting of us being Champions

League

Well in the end we ended up winning the league by 7 points but you've got to feel sorry for Stirling who lost in the playoffs and its Stenhousemuir who end up getting promoted with us.

Youth Intake

The youth intake isn't the golden generation that we were promised but there is one standout player in Benhocine who will be getting retrained as a right winger.

Budgets

Well we have no transfer budget for next season but we do have an extra £20,000 a week in wages which is huge and we should be able to attract some decent players with that​

 

[leckuno]

Season 2

Transfers

We needed to go big this summer to make sure we were able to compete in the league and the wage budget we had available to us enables us to do that. So with us needing to go big we have been able to attract some big names for League One in Scotland. We raided some higher up teams in Scotland along with hitting the free transfers. We brought in a number of young players with the best got to be former Fulham player Matt O'Reily who has the potential to come up through the leagues with us or to sell on for a hefty profit. With the young players we needed to make sure it was balanced with experience and thats where Lee Wallace, Peter Pawlett, Anthony Forde and Bruno Andrade will be key for us over the next season or two. Just got to hope now that the 11 players we've signed can gel.

Tactic

We'll be sticking with the 4-4-2 that won us the league last season and it looks like we have a **** of a team and I expecting us to be challenging for the title again this season.

Pre-season

So while we play in the group stages of the League Cup and not in the Premiership we will be treating those games as friendlies as we won't be expecting to win against the bigger teams as the games against Kilmarnock and Hearts showed the difference in quality. The other 4 games though we player we won them all convincingly so we can only look forward to the season now.

Expectations

So the expectations are quite fair and we should do better. In the league we are expected to reach the play offs which is a minimum for me but I will be hoping to get close to winning the league. In the cups I'm not to bothered as its all reliant on the draws but we'll be looking to go as far as we can in them.

The Start

It looks like we should have a nice easy start to the season with nothing expected to throw any spanners in the works early on​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

looks like you've made some quality transfers, back to back promotions would be a decent way to start the save!

 

[leckuno]

looks like you've made some quality transfers, back to back promotions would be a decent way to start the save!

I think it should be quite easy to get to the premiership as hampden was sold at the end of of first season so we now have over 5 million in the bank as well so should be able to buy our way up

 

[leckuno]

August

Queen's Park v Montrose

A nice start to the season which saw Forde net a debut goal from the right wing and hopefully he is going to be able to show how good he is for us over the coming season.

Dumbarton v Queen's Park

Forde with his first hat-trick for the club as we're throwing down some very big markers to show we're not in this league to make up numbers.

Challenge Cup 2nd Round
Albion Rovers v Queen's Park

A tougher game than I would of liked against the Coatbridge team but Murray gets his first goals of the season to see us into the 3rd round.

Queen's Park v Cove Rangers

Another big win for us and its looking like we've got a massive goal threat in Murray, McHugh and Forde and teams should fear them going forward.

Queen's Park v Partick Thistle

They are all at it again as we seem to be a 3 man team, the worry will be what happens if one of them gets injured. We've conquered our first Glasgow team though with beating Partick. 1 down and 2 to go.

East Fife v Queen's Park

We've finally got a different goal scorer but we look really dangerous going forward as we've scored 19 goals so far and conceded only 4

League

A 4 point leaf after the opening games makes me think this season should be a formality for us going up.

September

We play our first game against somebody outside of Scotland which will be interesting to see how we get on against them. We've also got what I'd class as our first big test in the league against Raith Rovers

Transfers

We saw some movement on deadline day as we saw Lee Angol join Cheltenham for £6,500 and Tommy Robson join Crewe for £13,750

With the wages and fees we were then able to bring in another midfielder as we bring in the former Portsmouth player Ben Close which mean our midfield has some healthy competition and should be sorted for the next couple of seasons.

Finally with Robson joining Crewe I needed another Left Back so we signed Sam Hart on loan from Hearts for the season to provide competition for Lee Wallace

 

[leckuno]

September

Challenge Cup 3rd Round
Queen's Park v St Patrick's Athletic

A really tough game and we were lucky to get a win here as St Pats were excellent but just couldn't take their chances so we progress to the 4th Round

Raith Rovers v Queen's Park

We knew this was going to be a tough game but I'm not going to lie it was tough to concede with the last kick of the ball. We'll need to improve on that going forward.

Queen's Park v Stenhousemuir

We finally meet with Stenhousemuir who were promoted with us last season and we leave it very late to get the win but at least the score line looked convincing.

Queen's Park v Airdrieonians

We finally put in a performance to be proud of and it was nice to get off to a quick start as well. We need to carry this onto next month instead of leaving it late

League

We've now got a 10 point lead and I can only see it getting bigger over the rest of the season.

October

We play our fiercest rivals for the first time and I want to say their won't be many other changes to play them after this seasons so hopefully it will be a good game.​

 

[leckuno]

October

Clyde v Queen's Park

This was a disappointing result as we concede in the final minute against our rivals but we still get a point which is the only positive from this game.

Challenge Cup 4th Round
Queen's Park v Rothes

We rotated a large part of the squad here and it paid off as we progress into the quarter finals where we will face Stirling Albion.

Montrose v Queen's Park

A much better result here as our terrific trio are all banging in the goals again for us.

Queen's Park v Dumbarton

Matt O'Riley gets his first goal for the club as we have a great first half. The second half was a disappointment though as we just couldn't find the clinical touch.

Queen's Park v East Fife

I'm never worried when we fall behind just now as I always have the belief that we can outscore anybody and that showed after the early goal that we conceded early.

League

Our lead continues to grow and promotion is well in our sights now.

November

We've got 2 cup games this month which will be the priority for us as the cup runs can only help us grow our reputation​

 

[leckuno]

November

Cove Rangers v Queen's Park

What a second half from Murray and McHugh as they both get a brace for us to get a rack up another win.

Partick Thistle v Queen's Park

Its a bit disappointing to concede late on again after leading for so long and we can't get another win over our Glasgow rivals.

Challenge Cup Quarter Final
Stirling Albion v Queen's Park

We throw everything at this game as we want to win everything we can to build our reputation and we now progress to the semi finals/

Scottish Cup Third Round
Inverness v Queen's Park

Inverness took the lead before we very quickly pegged back straight from the restart and then we get a last minute winner which I didn't think was coming but its enough for us to now go into the 4th round.

Queen's Park v Raith Rovers

Not the best of start for us but again we manage to show our fighting spirit and get the win. Raith have always managed to give us a good game.

League

December

A nice easy month ahead with no real challenges.​

 

[leckuno]

December

Stenhousemuir v Queen's Park

They caused us all sorts of problems last season and they continue to do so. They certainly seem to be our bogey team.

Queen's Park v Clyde

After the last game against Clyde where we conceded in the last minute we needed to make a statement against our rivals and we certainly did that with all our attacking players getting the goals.

Airdrieonians v Queen's Park

A much tougher game than the score line shows and that shows with the fact that our RB got the opening goal right before half time but we powered through and got the 2nd.

Queen's Park v Montrose

I'm starting to get worried when we concede first as I know that our run can't go on forever but we continue to impress in front of goal

League

January

We've got the Scottish Cup and we've been given an easy tie which means we can look at rotating the squad to give some players some time off

Youth Preview

it looks promising but I won't get excited about it until we see who actually comes through.​

 

[leckuno]

January

Dumbarton v Queen's Park

It was disappointing to concede in the final 5 minutes but it was still a comfortable win as we were never really worried by Dumbarton.

Queen's Park v Cove Rangers

Cove gave us a proper run for our money here and I thought we were on to drop some points here but Bob McHugh got the decisive goal with 8 minutes to go.

Scottish Cup 4th Round
Queen's Park v Civil Service

We were able to rotate some of the squad here so we were able to give Benhocine his debut as well and boy did he perform with an excellent brace along with a couple of assists. He was only outshone by Simon Murray who got a hat-trick to get us into the Fifth round.

East Fife v Queen's Park

Murray continues his form banging in another 2 quick goals as we find our goal scoring boots again.

Queen's Park v Partick Thistle

A big win against one of our Glasgow rivals as well which means we've scored 16 goals in our last 3 games which just shows how strong we are.

League

February

We've got cup ties against two teams from Dundee and that will be the important games for us this month.

Transfers

So we had a number of players leave the club this month with Blair Lyons going to Bradford City for £3.8k, Darren Lyon went to Cambridge United for £11k, Jai Quitongo went to Burton Albion for £16.25k and finally a transfer I didn't want to do but I couldn't deprive one of my players moving to a much bigger team as Canice Carroll went to Nottingham Forest for £43.5k .

Players In

With Canice Carroll leaving we need a new RB in and so we signed Lee O'Connor from Celtic on loan for the rest of the season.

We then got busy on transfer deadline day as we brought in 4 new players with the next couple of seasons in mind. First we brought in former Motherwell striker Louis Moult who will provide more competition up top

Next we brought in Billy Bodin for the LW who again will provide more competition and brings a wealth of experience.

Next we bring in the first of two defenders with Ireland international and former Blackburn players Derrick Williams who will go into the starting XI.

Finally we brought in Mikey Devlin who was released by Aberdeen but we couldn't knock back the chance to sign a Scotland International who should be in our defence over the next couple of seasons.

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